FutureCrafting. A Speculative Method for an Imaginative AI

The issue I explore with this position paper concerns dominant cultural scripts around Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the need to imagine different narratives in light of machine learning’s autonomous performativity. The aim is to offer a philosophical reflection, not only to sidestep narratives of techno-determinism, dystopia and existential risk to mankind, but also to speculate on how to imagine a (more) benevolent AI based on uncertainty and the co-evolution of humans and technology. The paper presents the speculative methodology I call FutureCrafting: a forensic, diagnostic and divinatory method that investigates the possibility of other discourses, equally powerful in building reality, constructing futures and having tangible impact. FutureCrafting is speculation at the juncture of design and philosophy, pivoting around the open-ended figuration of the what if…? It articulates collaboration rather than competition, coevolution rather than antagonism, and privileges the indeterminate and the imaginative. To conclude, the paper makes reference to the non-human intelligence of the octopus and to how this can inform a more imaginative AI.